With the advent of the Internet and broadband access, which has become more and more prevalent, consumers and entities now have a plethora of information, which is seemingly just a keystroke or click away. This has been extremely beneficial for enriching the affairs (e.g., intellectually, personally, financially, etc.) of consumers and entities. These developments have also improved the efficiency of the consumers and entities.
However, the benefits also have a number of drawbacks. For instance, because there is so much information available finding relevant information can be a trying and time-consuming experience when the relevant information is buried within a sea of irrelevant information. Some search and retrieval services have made significant improvements in this area of information relevancy, but these services still often require the affirmative action of a user to construct a proper search. Without a well constructed search and the affirmative action of the user, the search and retrieval services provided little additional benefit to the user.
Another drawback is that the users often have to identify themselves while searching for desired information over the Internet. The problem with this is that there are numerous automated services on the Internet that are attempting to profile users and gather information on them. Some of this profiling is considered legal, such as when it is being done for lawful marketing purposes, and some of this profiling is considered illegal, such as when it is being done to perform electronic identity theft of a user. In either case, users are not comfortable with electronic profiling and many consider it to be an invasion of their privacy, even if such profiling is considered lawful.
In still another drawback, most consumers and entities lead very busy existences with a variety of obligations, commitments, and interests. In many cases, users do not have the time to manually and continuously search the Internet for information that interests them and their affairs. Moreover, most users do not have the luxury of having the necessary resources to hire outside agencies to regularly and continually mine the Internet on their behalf for all their interests for purposes of making their existences a little more enriched and a little more efficient.